On the Needles

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Update Time!

It's been a while since I updated the good 'ol blog. We've been busy building fence. We got the area south of the barn mostly fenced in. Wires are strung, posts are pounded and everything is clipped down. There are gates to hang.Unfortunately I can't turn anything loose into the area and keep them contained.

The problem is our barn. It's a 60 x 120 foot monster that is falling in. Really about 20 years ago someone needed to love it, and put a new roof on. When we bought our place in 2002, we couldn't afford to at the time. It's slowly been falling in. This winter the south side wall finally went down. The uprights that support the hay mow are actually still very straight and strong, so I don't know when it will eventually go down.

Our intentions are to pull it down in the next couple of years and put up a smaller, more usable sized building for the sheep and any other livestock that we'll be acquiring.

Speaking of acquiring we had a slight problem with the sheep. The individual we'd hired to pick up the sheep turned out to not be the type of person we wanted hauling our woolies cross-country. So we've gotten our deposit back and we're planning to go to Virginia to pick them up ourselves.

Last Friday J and the minions drove to Fort Dodge to pick up a horse trailer. It's a sturdy unit that may not be so pretty, but it will hold the sheep very nicely. I'm in the process of working out a date to pick up the sheep with Susan at Juniper Moon. Right now it looks like sometime after April 25.

I have photos of fence building AND the new trailer -- the minions think that it is the most awesome jungle gym -- but I left the camera at home and am typing this up on break while at work.

Last night I struck a deal with the neighbor and resident chicken farmer. He's heading to the big city about an hour away on Thursday to pick up his special order chickens and he offered to pick up eight Rhode Island Reds for us. He also volunteered to keep them in his brooder until they were big enough to run free and then they'll come and live at our place.

I haven't told Ian yet. He'll be so excited I won't be able to contain him. That means while this weekend won't be dedicated to working toward sheep needs, it will be dedicated to working toward chicken needs.